By Ahmed Aboulenein and Stephanie Kelly
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Donald Trump’s pick for health secretary, moved closer to securing the top health job on Tuesday after winning a senior Republican senator’s backing with pledges to protect existing vaccination programs.
Kennedy made the pledges to Senator Bill Cassidy, a member of the Republican-led Senate Finance Committee that voted on Tuesday to advance Kennedy’s nomination to a full Senate vote as soon as this week.
The panel voted 14-13 along party lines with Democrats having accused Kennedy over two days of contentious confirmation hearings of being financially vested in the anti-vaccine movement and peddling conspiracy theories to sow doubt about lifesaving medicines – assertions Kennedy rejected.
Cassidy, who also chairs the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, said after the vote that he had received commitments over the weekend from Kennedy and the White House. Those include “an unprecedentedly close collaborative working relationship” in which Kennedy and Cassidy will meet multiple times a month.
Kennedy also gave Cassidy assurances over vaccines, as the 70-year-old environmental lawyer has long sown doubts about the safety and efficacy of vaccines that have helped curb disease and prevent deaths for decades.
It is not clear whether Kennedy would be legally bound to the commitments or how he would be held accountable to upholding them.
He pledged not to take down any government health agency statements that autism is not caused by vaccines, an assertion proven by studies but which Kennedy has said is not proven.
Kennedy disputes the anti-vaccine characterization and has said he would not prevent Americans from getting inoculations.
“He (Kennedy) has also committed that he will work within current vaccine approval and safety monitoring systems and not establish parallel systems,” Cassidy said in a speech on the Senate floor.
He said Kennedy had promised to honor decisions by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s outside panel of experts, known as the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, without changes.
Before the vote, Cassidy was seen as a potential swing vote against Kennedy after he said during a confirmation hearing last week that he was struggling with the decision.
If Kennedy is confirmed in the full Senate, he will run the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees more than $3 trillion in healthcare spending, including agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration and the agency in charge of Medicare and Medicaid health programs that provide health insurance for over 140 million Americans.
Kennedy has faced opposition from health groups, Democrats, family members and the Wall Street Journal and New York Post editorial boards, who say he is unfit for the job because of his role in the anti-vaccine movement.
Shares of vaccine manufacturers and packaged food companies fell after the vote. Pfizer’s stock was down 1.8%, along with U.S. shares of its COVID-19 vaccine partner, BioNTech, which was down 3%. Moderna was down 5.1% and Novavax down around 1%.
Shares of Hershey, Mondelez, Kraft Heinz, General Mills were all down 2%.
Kennedy, who created the phrase “Make America Healthy Again” after he endorsed Trump for president last year, calls for banning hundreds of food additives and chemicals. He has also called for getting ultra-processed foods out of school lunches.
Some of Kennedy’s supporters were upset over the number of concessions he made to win Cassidy’s vote and took to social media platform X to call for the senator to face a Republican primary challenger if he runs for the Senate again in 2026.
“Get Kennedy confirmed and primary Cassidy,” one supporter posted.
Now, Kennedy needs the support of at least 50 senators, which would allow Vance to cast a tie-breaking vote to confirm his nomination.
The Republican-controlled Senate has not rejected any of Trump’s nominees so far. His controversial defense secretary pick, Pete Hegseth, squeaked by in a 51-50 vote after Vance was needed to break a tie in January.
The Senate Intelligence Committee is due on Tuesday to vote behind closed doors on former U.S. Representative Tulsi Gabbard’s nomination to become director of national intelligence, another Trump nominee facing an uncertain path to confirmation.
(Reporting by Ahmed Aboulenein in Washington and Stephanie Kelly in New York; additional reporting by Gabriella Borter in Washington; editing by Caroline Humer, Alistair Bell and Deepa Babington)
